Barstool Sports founder plans to send patrons with hate signs to Auschwitz
"Rather than ruin a couple 20-year-olds' lives, maybe this can be used as a teaching moment," Dave Portnoy said.
Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, stated on Sunday that he intended to send the patrons of his bar in Philadelphia, who displayed signs directing an expletive at Jews, to visit Auschwitz.
“Rather than ruin a couple 20-year-olds’ lives, maybe this can be used as a teaching moment,” stated the businessman, who has millions of followers on social media and is known for his pizza store reviews.
Portnoy, who is Jewish, said he had been “shaking” because he was so angry. “I’ve been hunting down waitresses, the table who did it,” he said, adding that he wanted consequences for actions. “The two waitresses responsible for the table were already fired.”
When he called one of the two waitresses, he reached her at a dance recital, and she asked if she could call him back in 20 minutes, Portnoy said. “No, you can’t,” he said. “This is your one chance to talk to me. Idiot. Total idiot.”
Portnoy also said he reached one of the two people who displayed the sign and had him crying on the phone.
The Republican Jewish Coalition thanked Portnoy for his response. “I don’t agree with Dave on a lot, but I do on this,” stated actor and comedian Ben Stiller.
“Everyone should keep this energy and hunt down the scum who are proudly antisemitic,” wrote Meghan McCain, the commentator and daughter of the late senator and presidential candidate John McCain.
Ben Waxman, a Democrat and Pennsylvania state representative who represents South Philadelphia, wrote that he condemns the “act of hate speech that sadly occurred at a Jewish-owned business in my district.”
“Everyone is welcome here, and we reject these kinds of acts in the strongest terms,” he stated. “Grateful to Dave Portnoy for taking quick action and speaking out forcefully against what occurred.”
Others stated that sending the offenders to Auschwitz wasn’t the right response. “Your first instinct, to end them, was the right one. You’re a strong Jew, why show them when we were weakest?” wrote the conservative commentator and writer Karol Markowicz.
“Showing Jew-haters how much other people have hated Jews too won’t change anything,” she wrote. “Would have been better to take them to Israel as the Israelis finish the Houthis.”
John Fry, the president of Temple University, in Philadelphia, stated on Sunday that the public school was aware that “Temple students were involved in an antisemitic incident at an off-campus location last night.”
“This is deeply disturbing, and it is with profound regret that I must share this news with our community. In the strongest terms possible, let me be clear: antisemitism is abhorrent,” Fry said. “It has no place at Temple and acts of hatred and discrimination against any person or persons are not tolerated at this university.”
Fry said that the school’s student affairs division is investigating and it has “identified one Temple student who is believed to have been involved” who has “already been placed on interim suspension.” PJC
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